The Dark Sacrament (17 page)

On Wednesday, May 5, 2004, she was upstairs in one of the children's rooms, collecting laundry, when she heard something unusual. She remembers checking the time on her daughter's Barbie clock. It was 12:30 p.m.

“As I was making the bed I heard an almighty hammering on the party wall,” she recalls. “In fact it was so sudden and fierce, it made me jump.”

Josie immediately thought that Declan was doing some home improvement. But she was sure she had heard the couple leave that morning. She went at once to the window. She was correct; their cars were gone. Never mind, she thought, perhaps they had employed someone to do repairs in their absence. Without giving it further thought, she heaped the laundry into the basket and went downstairs.

Several days passed and Josie forgot all about the disturbance. Until a similar incident occurred.

She was upstairs again when she heard a rapid thumping on the wall. She looked at the clock and froze. It was 12:30—the same time as before. But now the noises seemed more urgent and were somehow more deliberate and purposeful. There was something eerie about the pattern of sound as it traveled to various points on the wall, each time repeating a succession of what she could only describe as “hammer blows.” Josie was becoming uneasy. She hurried from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Once downstairs, she berated herself for being so silly. There was only one thing to do: knock on the door of number 8 and find out who was making all that racket.

It was a still, mild day, and Cedar Close appeared to be otherwise deserted when she pushed open the gate to the Rooney house. She had an odd sense of foreboding. The feeling was made all the more powerful when, just as she was about to ring the doorbell, a magpie swept down as if from nowhere and landed on the doorstep. Josie jumped back, her hand to her heart. In her fright she trampled on some geraniums. The bird took flight.

An old wives' tale common to many parts of Ireland suggests that it is unlucky to espy a lone magpie. In order to dispel the misfortune, one is encouraged to wave or to salute the bird. This Josie knew; the vestigial echoes of superstition from a rural childhood would never quite disappear. She made the prescribed gesture in the wake of the fleeing bird.

The sense of dread had not left her. She rang the doorbell. There was no response; she heard no sounds from inside the house.
She rapped on the stained-glass door panel and waited for a few moments more. Still no response. Josie was undeterred; she went around to the patio doors at the rear and tried again. Still there was no answer. She stood perplexed. Perhaps the handyman was a shy person who did not like to be disturbed. As she was turning to go, however, something in the kitchen caught her eye.

The kitchen was similar to her own. The patio doors allowed a great deal of light to bathe the area, revealing a sizable area of floor space to someone looking in. Josie also had a view of the hallway and staircase. But her attention was on the kitchen floor and something quite remarkable.

Shielding her eyes against the glare of daylight and peering more closely, she tried to come to terms with the inexplicable. Plumb in the middle of the pine floor was a lighted candle in a small brass holder, and next to it an open book. Its bulk and the red silk ribbon lying askew across the pages told Josie it was a Bible.

But the house at number 8 was not done with surprises. She discerned movement on the staircase. What she took to be a bright orange “ball of light” was swiftly descending. “It certainly wasn't the reflection of the sun,” Josie says, “because there was no sun to speak of that day. It moved with such speed anyway. I got really scared because I thought I was going to see it at the glass. I never ran so fast in all my life.”

Back in the safety of her own home, she recovered by and by, and went to put the kettle on. She thought a cup of tea might settle her nerves. But the calm did not last long. From upstairs came the unmistakable hammering on the shared wall again.

Josie Brady grabbed her coat and car keys and left the house in haste.

A few hours later, Declan and Stephanie pulled into their driveway. The first thing they noticed was the unlatched garden gate.

“Bloody postman,” complained Stephanie. “I know who it is, too. Lar Stewart. He's in a back-to-work program and he doesn't much care what he does.”

“I know how he feels,” said Declan, locking his car. “I remember when I was unemployed they made me do that nonsense as well. Slave labor if you ask me. They put me picking mushrooms for an old creep outside Claudy. God, he was a tight old—”

“Yes, Declan.” Stephanie was in no mood to listen to a story that she had heard countless times before. “Just look at our geraniums. That's Convery's bloody dog—or Stewart's big feet. I'll tell you something: I'm going to read him the riot act tomorrow.”

“Er, it wasn't the postman,” he said. “Look—no letters.”

“Who was it then?”

“The ghost?”

“Please, Declan! Not even in jest, okay?” And she went upstairs to change.

From the time their troubles began, the couple had made a habit of locking all the doors before leaving for work. At the same moment that Stephanie was putting her key in the bedroom door, Declan was unlocking the door to the kitchen.

Upstairs and down there was evidence of fresh mischief.

Stephanie was staring at the drawers of her bureau. All had been pulled open and the contents rifled. The window was shut tight, just as she had left it. There could therefore be no doubt—their otherworldly visitor had returned.

Downstairs, Declan was struggling to come to terms with the burning candle and the Bible.

Curiously, in those moments, both decided that they would not alarm the other by telling of what they had seen.

With quivering hands, Stephanie rearranged her effects and quietly closed each drawer. Meanwhile, Declan picked up the Bible. It was open at Proverbs. He slammed it shut, afraid to read what might be written there, and stowed it away in a kitchen cupboard. He blew out the candle. If he tossed it into the garbage can in the yard, he reasoned, Stephanie would never know.

He was sliding back the patio door when a thought struck him. Perhaps this was someone's idea of a practical joke. After all, he was
sure that the whole neighborhood and beyond knew about their “problems” by that stage. But he was remembering something else.

Declan was in the habit of stopping for a beer on his way home most Fridays. The local men had gotten to know him. He was friendly with them all, with the exception of one individual: Scottie Byrne. No one seemed to like Scottie. He worked in a shoe-repair shop in town, but he also cut keys. The word was that he could not be trusted. With his knowledge of locks, who knew what he might be capable of?

He had met Byrne the previous Friday, as he was leaving the bar. Scottie was a little drunk.

“Hey, Rooney,” he said with a smirk, “did that ghost of yours ever come back?”

Thinking back on it now and still puzzling over the strange tableau on the floor of his kitchen, Declan was asking himself if the unsavory Byrne might not have something to do with it.

He returned indoors and tucked the candleholder away in the back of a drawer. He hoped his wife would not notice it. He would clean up later. He needed time to think matters through. He made coffee and carried the tray into the living room.

“What's that smell?” Stephanie asked, coming downstairs.

“Smell?” Declan had not reckoned on the smell. He wished he had sprayed some air freshener.

“A burning smell. Like candle wax.”

“I think it's coming from outside,” he said. “I opened the back door to put something in the bin and it got in. Somebody burning rubbish or something. So how was your day?” he added, quickly changing the subject.

Much later that same evening, Josie Brady was telling her husband about
her
strange day. “It's not like you to go snooping around neighbors' houses,” he said.

“But it was awful! You'd have done the same, Noel. There's something not right about all of this. We should do something.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Well, you could talk to them. Say there might be burglars in the neighborhood.”

Noel checked with the Rooneys and came away satisfied that Josie had indeed been imagining things. No, the Rooneys had not employed a handyman. Furthermore, they assured him that the house was locked between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and that they held the only keys. Noel, in his wisdom, said nothing about what his wife
thought
she saw: the orange light on the staircase, and the Bible and candle. He would have felt a bit stupid relating such things. Even if Josie was mistaken—and he believed that she was—he had no wish to upset the young couple further.

The Rooneys closed the door on Mr. Brady's retreating back and looked at each other in dismay.

“My God, Declan, it's coming back!” Stephanie was devastated, close to tears. In her confusion and anger she did not know what she dreaded more: the return of the manifestations or the whole street knowing about them—and suspecting it was somehow the Rooneys' fault, that they had done something to invite this thing into their home. If Father O'Malley could think it, then why not others?

Declan tried to console her. “Look, maybe that woman was hearing things. You just don't know with people.”

He thought again of Scottie Byrne and his brief encounter with him the previous week. What if Byrne was behind it? Byrne was laughing. Was he laughing at his own sick joke? Declan did not doubt that Byrne could gain access to his house via the rear entrance; the man was forever bragging that he could pick a lock faster than any burglar and leave no trace. What if he was responsible for that trick with the candle? Why not run upstairs and hammer on the wall for a laugh as well? Annoy the neighbors. Annoying others seemed to be his stock in trade. It was a crazy idea, but Declan thought Byrne was a little crazy.

He decided to share his suspicions with Stephanie. She was not convinced. “That wouldn't explain the drawers in my dressing table.”

“Oh? What about them?”

“You might as well know,” she said with resignation. “They were all pulled open when we came in. Just like before!”

“Well, there you are then. What was to stop him, after hammering on the wall, messing with the drawers on his way out?”

“I suppose he could have,” Stephanie slowly conceded. “But why would he do a thing like that? We've never done him any harm. It just doesn't seem logical. For heaven's sake, I've never even spoken to the man.”

“I know. But even so, there are some very strange people in this world. Characters who get a kick out of seeing others upset. I've never liked Byrne. Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.”

This much Declan said to Stephanie. He was being less than honest, though. He did not believe that Scottie Byrne was the culprit. Nor was he prepared to face the possibility that there were paranormal forces at work. Wooden balls bouncing about the room were one thing; lighted candles and open Bibles in the kitchen were something else again. Ghosts and poltergeists, in Declan's book, did not do such things—people did. He was considering a number of possibilities. He was asking himself if he or Stephanie had made an enemy of someone without being aware of it. He was asking himself if somebody was trying to frighten them into leaving the house in Cedar Close. For what purpose? Was there perhaps something buried on the site? Stolen money? Something more sinister?

Declan was determined to solve the mystery. He would unmask the intruder. Before going to bed that night, he put his new plan into action. Over the pine floorboards in the kitchen, he sprinkled a fine covering of salt. If somebody entered the kitchen, he or she would leave footprints in the salt, proving that intervention of the human rather than the ghostly kind was at work. He made sure to lock the patio doors, and took the added precaution of locking the kitchen door as well.

While Declan was engaged downstairs, Stephanie was kneeling at her bedside, praying fervently to Michael the Archangel for protection. At the same time, she was hoping that her husband's sup
position was correct, that all this was somebody's idea of a joke. If that were so, she vowed that the creep would pay the price. Nobody was going to drive her from her own home.

But something woke her in the early morning, in the predawn.

Stephanie sensed that a voice—a child's voice—had spoken to her, though she heard nothing further. She lay very still, hoping to hear the voice again. Strange to say, considering her fears of the night before, she did not feel frightened. She heard Declan breathing lightly in his sleep and had no wish to rouse him. Perhaps she had simply been dreaming. She lay awake, wondering about the child's voice. Though her eyes were shut, she was aware of the first light of day beginning to seep in at the window.

Idly she began to think about children and how fine it would be to have a child of her own. She and Declan had discussed it from time to time. The plan was that, in a couple of years' time, when they had enough money saved, they would start a family. Like so many young women, Stephanie hoped that her first child would be a girl.

She was picturing a delightful little girl in a frilly pink dress and auburn pigtails: a little girl not unlike the toddler she had once been. She saw her clearly in her mind's eye. The child was running to meet her, laughing and reaching out to be hugged.

What happened next was extraordinary.

Stephanie felt what could only be a small hand squeeze her upper arm. She was wide awake immediately. She sat up in bed and switched on the bedside lamp, even though it was dawn by then. Her heart pounding, she peered at her bare arm, expecting to see a mark there. There was nothing.

She was convinced, nonetheless, of a presence in the room. She sensed that the little girl was still there, gazing at her and her sleeping husband. Gone was Stephanie's fear; tenderness for the child had replaced it. She sensed a need.